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Just out of curiosity, since Saudi Arabia already has the F-15S in their posession, what the hell are we doing giving "permission" for them to base them wherever they want within their own soverign borders?

Something to consider in all of this debate...the S-300PMU battery Iran bought from Russia to defend the reactor complex.

I want to see the UN go in and say "there is no WMD program at Bushehr" and the Israeli's bomb it anyway...then somebody else can be the bad guy for a change

Seriously though, all kidding aside, if Iran says there isn't one there, and Israel can't prove it, will they really violate someone's sovereign territory and commit an act of war anyway? This is a little more serious than "there might be a terrorist in the building, level the whole block".

-Look at all the effort that was done on the Iraqi reactor job many moons ago:
*Over a year of Iraqi scientists abroad being "accident prone" and dieing before the strike
*An Israeli sabotage mission in France that destroyed components of the reactor, putting it back MONTHS.
*The target location was obvious and ONE location.
*Range and mission planning was a big issue then.... this leads to today...

-Even greater range, but more important:
-What do you target? There is the obvious site, but you might not get all of their program.
-The backlash would not be worth the effort. Sanctions from the U.S. would be severe. Not a little smack like the Iraq strike.
-Iran isn't the equal of the leadership of the then S.H. so the threat intent isn't there.
-The idea several posts back that the U.S. would stand by and let a strike like this go is a non-starter. A completely nationalized Iran is not what the U.S. would like to see as opposed to its current leadership splits.
-Turkey would not help on this as put foward several posts back.

"Sanctions from the U.S. would be severe. Not a little smack like the Iraq strike."

I dunno about US backlash, we do seem to let Israel get away with whatever it wants, and never stand up to them in the UN with the rest of the world Sure, we'd probably stand up and say "bad", but I'd be willing to bet that we don't stop F-16s heading over the ocean from Lockheed...

"Well, what does this tell us? Probably that there's more valuable targets elsewhere..."

Or that they're learning the system before they commit it to an active part of the defense of their country.

Originally posted by SOC "Sanctions from the U.S. would be severe. Not a little smack like the Iraq strike."

I dunno about US backlash, we do seem to let Israel get away with whatever it wants, and never stand up to them in the UN with the rest of the world Sure, we'd probably stand up and say "bad", but I'd be willing to bet that we don't stop F-16s heading over the ocean from Lockheed...

"Well, what does this tell us? Probably that there's more valuable targets elsewhere..."

Or that they're learning the system before they commit it to an active part of the defense of their country.

Except in this situation if they ever pulled a stunt like this we would smack them silly. Reason? We have troops in the area and we don't need them put at more risk. The conference call would not be pretty.

I dont think the US will take kindly to an Israeli attack on iran. My guess is that US wouldnt like to pi$$ off Iran at the moment .Iran can create a LOT of trouble in the Iraqi shi'ite south as retaliation for any US/Israeli aggression/infringement of Iranian sovereignity. The last thing the US needs ATM is unrest in Southern Iraq....

Well lets just assume, so that we can move on a bit here, that somehow the Israelis are able to make their way towards Iran, let us look at the Iranian EW capablilities, its fighters and missiles and training, that should be more interesting that who should have nukes or not and who supports Israel.

Let us not forget that a couple of months ago, Israeli fighters overflew Damascus and blew up a "terrorist camp", so much for Syrian Air Defence and EW, how would Iran fare?

Originally posted by sharmaji Well lets just assume, so that we can move on a bit here, that somehow the Israelis are able to make their way towards Iran, let us look at the Iranian EW capablilities, its fighters and missiles and training, that should be more interesting that who should have nukes or not and who supports Israel.

Let us not forget that a couple of months ago, Israeli fighters overflew Damascus and blew up a "terrorist camp", so much for Syrian Air Defence and EW, how would Iran fare?

Well They are making some kind of AWACS from An-140 type aircraft. Around 24 F-14 are operational while some reports put it around 50. Su-24 is their main strike figher. About 28 functional Mig 29 not upto SMT standard. One IL-76 AWACS with Tiger type radar on it. other aircrafts are F-4, F-5, Mirage F-1EQs etc. Country is big so alot of places to hide things. But i don't think this plant is the place to make nuclear weopons. There are hundred of Iran scientist taking eduction in this field from Russian institues. So if these comeback they will have a some kind of weopon in the near future.

This business with the S-300's is silly. Iran has only imported a single battery of S-300PMU-1's (even Cyprus bought more than that) and they are not located at Bushehr. Iran's fixed air-defence command centre at the reactor site is almost totally undefended on the ground and is immobile.

If Israel were to send a double strike package of F-16I's and F-15 Thunders, supported by US recon KH-11, I suspect they would only be able to hit the top 5% of all Irans nuclear targets, and this includes the construction facilities of the Shahab ballistic missile.

Iran could very easily have its air-defences suppressed by SEAD shooters with HARM's, and probably very-capable airborne jamming. The S-300's could be taken out, but most likely avoided.

The main threat would be Iranian F-14A Tomcats and Mig-29NM2 Fulcrums, though Isareli losses would be relatively low since the Iranian AF does not have credible data-linking or AEWR.

The likely Iranian response would be to fire Shahab missiles at Israel, though this would achieve little, unless nuclear tipped or packing NBC agents. Self-defence would be claimed.

Forget an Su-24 attack. That would be suicidal, and Iran is not in that kind of business.

The best option for Iran is to purchase large numbers of TOR-M1 and TOR-M1T point-defence systems, and concentrate them around primary targets with large numbers of accurate AAA/SAM systems like Tunguska 2SS2M. These would be very effective in blocking an attack with PGM's.

The side with the greatest intelligence will be the victor in this rather unpleasent scenario. Iran could really use some AWAC's if it wanted to become nuclear.

Originally posted by Twilight2002 Forget an Su-24 attack. That would be suicidal, and Iran is not in that kind of business.

1. Iran is the state sponsor of Hizbollah, so in a sense, they are "in that business"

2. An Su-24 attack? If there is no concrete evidence presented showing a definite threat to Israel, and they level Bushehr, why not? I'm sure the rest of the Arab community would be irritated. The question is whether Saudi Arabia would be irritated enough to allow an Iranian strike package to overfly their airspace. Do I think this is a likely outcome? Not really. But it is something to think about. Besides, it's not like the Saudi's have anything to fear from the US in response for aiding an Iranian raid. They've got us by the spheroids with their share of oil we import, and have we taken any action over their involvement in 9/11? That was a direct attack on US soil and it went unpunished. A little cleaning up in Israel shouldn't merit a more serious response, should it? Again, that's mostly off-the-wall speculation. But in these kinds of scenarios, you just never really know what's going to go down until it's already on the news.

Well aside from PLA (I appreciate at least you have the smarts to mention it), not a single person has even mentioned the F-4 in any of these equations yet it remains the backbone of both the IRIAF and the IDF/AF.......so why does it not deserve a mention.

And I'm not just talking about the fighter variants (F-4D/E in Iran'q case and the F-4E 2000's of the IDF/AF), but the recce models (RF-4E for both and then F-4E(S) for Israel) as well, because I guarantee you they'd be pretty important as well.

Over time this type of thing is steadily getting on my nerves more and more every day.

Originally posted by ELP Except in this situation if they ever pulled a stunt like this we would smack them silly. Reason? We have troops in the area and we don't need them put at more risk. The conference call would not be pretty.

As long as US and allied troops are in the area (Iraq and Afghanistan) this strike is a total nono. If Israel tries that stunt then, the sanctions would be harsh.

No Arab or moslem would believe they did this without US backing and the US troops make such inviting targets .... Especially as the Shiites in Iraq are still postive to the US invasion. With such a atunt that wouldchange and Iran would most likely help them to carry out attacks agsint the allies.

And as was mentioned before Iran is running many sites and has nearly 2 installations for every important facility most of them hardened or/and deeply burried in the underground.

One strike would not stop the programm ....

Member of ACIG

an unnamed Luftwaffe officer:"Typhoon is a warm weather plane. If you want to be operational at -20°C you have to deploy the F-4F."

Well, in the unlikely case the true cause remained uncovered, all they would have managed is destroying one target.
In the more likely case of the plot's discovery, Israel would lose all US- backing, would have to hand in their WMDs to UN inspectors and probably ceased to exist a not so long while later.

Originally posted by SOC 1. Iran is the state sponsor of Hizbollah, so in a sense, they are "in that business"

That would be no excuse to bomb Iranian Nuke plants, go bomb hezbollah instead, much easier anyway,

As for consequences, USA involved or not, it will face all the backclash from extremists becuase israel is too secure for them so naturally they'll say oh well...israel america same thing..lets go blow some bombs and plane in USA, so USA is in equation automatically, so USA will have to completely support the move, or deny it and stop Israel doing it aswell, which im nor sure they're capable of seeing the past history.

@distiller: Russians Sats will pick it up, and next thing you know is jews paying billions of dollars yearly to keep the russians quite, than you have EU, dont ask about it, it'll get leaked lol.

Other conequences would be Ayatollahs will be the next heros among muslims even if few targets got bombed, they'll shout out louad that israel failed to destroy everything and so they failed there objectives and so we win, so they'll be sitting in power for next 50 years, same thing happed when iraq attackd iran, ppl got united against common enemy and forgot the internal problems.

and plz dont discuss that we should have nukes, they wont, and this and that bla bla bla, no point here, there is an israel vs palestine post on other forum, go throw rants over there, its just for that lol. Keep it as much unpolitical as you can.

Other consequences can be Iran shooting shahab, it will be perfect chance for them, World wouldnt make a noise about that, they'll aim it Israel's nuke assets and other important stuff, now shahabs arent very accurate, to hit a nuke you should have atleast CEP of 100-75 m or other importanat targets,in the region now only Pak ballistic missiles are that accurate and thats upto 800 KM only as of now, so the software and other technical stuff is no no for iran unless it can strike israel from 800 km?? (I'm assuming CEP becuase in the last missile test, Pak not only showed the missile taking off, they showed it landing as well, and it hit only few metres away from the intended target of red flag with little warhead to test the trigger)

Anway, Shahab strike is no no for iran, it mighht end up hitting Arafat, and the only arab nation celebrating would be Kuwait, lol.

best Iran could do is create more problems in already full of problem iraq, which i not in anyone's interest.

Politically, strike is not possible, so dont ring politics.

Stage 2: Assume the planes are inside iran, they get the beep just before planes enter the border and iran takes action, lets discuss the action now..

Originally posted by PhantomII ... the F-4 ... yet it remains the backbone of both the IRIAF and the IDF/AF.......

What is the problem here?

The F-4 is as good as withdrawn from Israeli service, if not completely by now. You are right about it still being in use in considerable numbers in Iran, but you are most delusional in your 'backbone of the IDF/AF'-statement. The Pahtom might have been that 25 years ago, it definately has lost that title a long time ago.

Regards,

Arthur

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Other consequences can be Iran shooting shahab, it will be perfect chance for them, World wouldnt make a noise about that, they'll aim it Israel's nuke assets and other important stuff, now shahabs arent very accurate, to hit a nuke you should have atleast CEP of 100-75 m or other importanat targets,in the region now only Pak ballistic missiles are that accurate and thats upto 800 KM only as of now, so the software and other technical stuff is no no for iran unless it can strike israel from 800 km?? (I'm assuming CEP becuase in the last missile test, Pak not only showed the missile taking off, they showed it landing as well, and it hit only few metres away from the intended target of red flag with little warhead to test the trigger)

What do you please know about the accuracy of the Iranian Shahab ? Iran’s Shahab-3 is not the No-Dong-2/Ghauri-I and other than Pakistan or North Korea Iran build guidance systems based on Laser Gyroscopes with GPS/GOLNASS support that combined with a Warhead separation system mean a very accurate missile which even "underestimating FAS" state at 150-90m and with Laser Gyroscope/GPS the CEP could even be much shorter.

Such an CEP combined with the lets say "special", "over 1T" conventual warhead of the Shahab-3 would mean that Iran could strike the Diamona reactor complex and even a dozen of missiles in short intervals would be enough to destroy it... the Arrow ABM would at best have a 50% PK against a missile like the Shahab-3 and that is really very optimistic.

Also don’t forget that Iran other than Pakistan and North Korea would use really many Shahab-3 missiles as for Iran these are conventual tactical weapons, not strategic delivery system for a few dozen nukes....

But Israel is likely to knowing all this things and a strike on Diamona would let Israel push the red button connected with Nuke tipped Jericho’s. That’s why it would be more likely that Iran attack all known important military and government installations.

As next how Israel want to strike Iran ? Busher is a possible target; Israelis could use stand-off weapons and disappear as fast as they can. But this would not even have 5% impact on a possible Iranian nuke program, what is important are installations in Arak, Nataz, Efahan and the Tehran region and there is no way Israel could reach this areas without a full war.

All this installations are very strong defended, there are several large surveillance radar systems in the area, most Improved HAWK sites of which Iran has quite many as well as many other SAM systems. As said in this areas are at least 2 S-300 systems and to guard the ways which lead to the area were all this installations are several Improved S-200 are stationed in the area. As said this is the strongest protected area in whole Iran, near to the installations are many bases with radars, AAA, and many MANPADs. The range to Nataz is long, flying extremely low with enough bombs against the deep underground Nataz installations would forbid any use of the afterburner... Long range SAM and Radar system would forbid tanker aircraft and high flying interceptors as support anywhere near to Iranian borders. One can be sure that on their way to Nataz or Esfahan they will get detected by some of the many systems, so even if they manage to bomb it, Iranian interceptors would already be on the way, all radar and SAM systems powered up and possible AEW aircrafts in the air.

In such a environment were dozens of full tanked and fast Tomcats equipped with improved Phoenixes know were you are there are I doubt even one of lets say 12 F-16I and 6 F-15I would manage a way out of this hell...

So there is no way to flying into Iran and come back. Israel could start a large SEAD/DEAD campaign but that would take, weeks or even months to destroy the most dangerous threats and would result intensive air battles, which would simply be a full war...

The only way which would be possible is a very hard CM or BM strike with many dozens of conventional Jericho’s and SLCM if available, but in such a case Iran can also strike and much heavier given the numbers of Iranian missiles.

You see something like with the Syrian camp is in no way possible with Iran.

A full war or a heavy missile strike when accepting an even heavier missile counter-attack. But a full war is very unlikely as Israel know that then Iran have several other "weapon" which could strike Israel.

Nice scenario, but I think you guys got the target co ordinates wrong . With all the recent news about the nuclear proliferation, I think another country will find itself ahead in the list. Ofcourse nothing is going to happen without first getting the nod from the US.